Light Come, Light Go: Gambling—Gamesters—Wagers—The Turf

by Ralph Nevill

A large proportion of the gains of the Monte Carlo bank is derived from small players who enter the rooms with the deliberate intention of either making a certain sum or losing what they have in their pockets; these form, as it were, the rank and file of the gambling army which is constantly being decimated by the Casino, and the almost total absence of such an element in the room upstairs reduced the play to a duel between the bank and a number of persons, the majority of whom were, more or less, capitalists and who, as often as not, went home immediately after bringing off one big and successful coup.

The gaming-rooms in the Casino at Monte Carlo have often been described as a hot-bed of vice and debauchery, the tables surrounded by a seething crowd of excited figures whose countenances betray the intense emotions which the vitiating effects of play arouse. "Cries of triumph, imprecations, moans and sobs are heard on every side." In certain highly coloured accounts, suicide is spoken of as being an ordinary occurrence, the crowd making way without comment for the passage of the corpse of some unfortunate gambler who, at the end of his tether, has blown out his brains.

All this is purely fanciful, and conveys no idea whatever of the real state of affairs prevailing in the rooms, where calm and good order invariably reign. There exists, indeed, an almost religious hush in the halls of this great Temple of Chance. After dinner, and towards the time of close of play, the scene, it is true, becomes more animated, but, as a rule, the only sounds heard are those connected with the games played. What conversation there is is almost exclusively devoted to short comments on such matters as the lack or abundance of runs on one particular colour, the persistent recurrence of certain numbers, the amount of winnings or losings of some well-known player, or the like; people rarely speak, when at the table, of their own vicissitudes in the battle with chance.

The real gamblers, that is to say, those to whom speculation is the very breath of life, speak least of all, their whole mind being concentrated upon the system or method of staking which it is generally their practice to adopt. They sit with unmoved faces, which appear neither elated by victory nor depressed by defeat.

A well-known Monte Carlo type—more abundant perhaps in the past than to-day—is the beau joueur, the man who plays to the gallery and, let it be added, pays handsomely for his performance. Certain and inevitable ruin is the fate of these individuals, who sacrifice themselves to the spirit of vanity. As a rule, the winnings or losings of such people are a great subject of conversation and discussion amongst the frequenters of the tables—they are said to have either won or lost enormous sums—to be at the end of their tether, or to have an enormous fortune behind them. Their fame, however, is of no enduring kind, being at best a nine days' wonder. They are soon forgotten, and their departure, leaving only too often their money in the vaults of the Casino, and an unpaid bill at their hotel, excites not even passing comment from the crowd of spectators whose approving gaze and fleeting admiration has been so dearly bought.

Some old players remain watching the game for a considerable space of time without risking a stake at all, till the moment arrives when either superstition or calculation prompts them to take the first steps in the campaign. Many of these come provided with memorandum books filled with column after column of figures, records of past runs on colours, and recurring sequences of numbers carefully inscribed as a guide to fathoming the capricious movements of fortune.

Others bring queer little mechanical contrivances, which are manipulated in a manner to show the correspondence between certain chances; whilst yet another section quite frankly display all sorts of fetishes, to some of which they attach a quite serious importance. A piece of the rope which has been used by a hangman is a fetish reputed to be an almost certain passport to good luck. The experience of the present writer with a grim relic of this kind did not, however, give any support to such a belief. As a great favour he was once given a small hempen souvenir by a friend, and armed with the precious talisman he betook himself to a trente-et-quarante table, where a good seat was secured. From the very first, however, it was evident that the gruesome charm was not exercising its occult influence in a direction favourable to its new, and perhaps somewhat sceptical, possessor. When runs were sought for, alternates appeared, and vice versa. Refaits were dealt with unnatural frequency; in fact, disaster followed disaster in an unbroken sequence, with the result that the little bit of rope was all that the player had in his pocket as he somewhat disconsolately strode out of the rooms, rather inclined to wish that the hempen relic had been utilised for its original purpose around the neck of its donor.

Gamblers are generally most superstitious folk and swayed by all sorts of whimsical ideas.

Years ago an old lady used to give the authorities a good deal of trouble by repeatedly bringing a small portion of ham into the rooms, and, whilst at play, cutting off slices and eating them. For some reason or other she had the fixed idea that, in her case, ham-eating propitiated fortune.